


Business Transactions

by queenbookwench



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Ben Harker (mentioned), Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 23:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8347111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenbookwench/pseuds/queenbookwench
Summary: The first thing Gloria says to Duke on the show is "I used to buy weed from you!"  How (and why) did that come about?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PeterHaleforAlpha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeterHaleforAlpha/gifts).



> Thanks to PeterHalefrorAlpha for a GREAT prompt--I hope you like what I did with it--and Jadzibelle, Serendipity, and YumeArashi for holding my hand while writing. 
> 
> And special thanks to Roseveare for organizing Troubled Tales!
> 
> This story was unexpectedly hard to write because I had to figure out a lot of my personal headcanon about Gloria and her history, as well as Duke's; I'm still hoping to incorporate it into a longer work.

Gloria pulled up at edge of the scramble of warehouses that represented the gritty industrial area of the Haven docks--to the extent that anything in Haven was allowed to have grit, rather than looking like it came off the front of a picture postcard. She felt like a bit of an idiot, honestly. 

_This is all Darlene Mitchell’s fault_ , Gloria thought to herself. A couple weeks earlier, she'd stopped at Mitchell’s Garden Center and Produce Stand to pick up some stakes for the tomatoes and asked Darlene for some of the “special tea.” Darlene, a broad-faced woman with a long greyish braid down her back, had looked uncharacteristically serious as she passed Gloria the small bag she’d drawn from beneath the counter. “Gloria, hon, there’s something I gotta tell you.”

“Bad news?” 

Darlene smiled a little. “Mostly good news for us, but it’s been awful hard telling the customers. I finally talked Eddie into selling the business and moving to North Carolina. Good to be near the grandchildren, you know? And Eddie can deny it all he wants, but a warmer climate’s bound to be better for his joints. A fellow from Camden’s going to be taking over. You can’t always tell just by talking to a person, but I think he’ll do right by the business. Only thing is, I just didn’t feel comfortable telling him anything about the _other_ business, so you’re gonna need to start doing your shopping for that somewhere else.”

“Hell, Darlene,” she'd replied, “I’d offer to take some of the plants off your hands myself, but I don’t have anywhere to put ‘em. Ben and I wouldn't want Ben Junior getting ideas--though honestly, he’s such a straight-laced kid that we probably wouldn’t have to worry about it.”

Remembering, Gloria sighed. Going to Darlene had been so _pleasant_ ; the docks were run down and reminded her of too many things she’d rather forget. Yep, the _Salty Dog_ was still there, a low, weathered grey building with half the letters in its neon sign burned out. She wondered if it was still the kind of bar where guys thought they could pinch your ass as part of the tab, the way they had during her very brief stint as a waitress. 

She walked around back, toward the pier, where some guys had their feet up on buckets and their fishing poles dangling idly in the water. “Here about an order,” she said. 

“Got it here,” said a familiar voice, and one of the figures unfolded himself from the chair. It was a tall, rangy young man--not a kid anymore, but clearly trying to look older than he was, in a faded black bomber jacket over his flannel shirt, a fuzzy caterpillar of an attempted mustache above his lip. Once over her initial start, Gloria thought to herself, _Looks like a half-starved alley-cat kitten trying to make himself look fierce_.The boy-man started back a little too, began to say her name then clamped his teeth shut. 

He handed over a package wrapped in the brown paper that often wrapped fresh fish. “Lemme walk you to your car,” he said, half asking, half not.

“Ooh, personal service! You're a gentleman now, eh, Crocker?” jeered one of the others, an older, ruddy-faced man. 

He flushed just a little, before he flipped the bird and said, “Ah fuck you, Buster, like you'd know.” 

“Ought come over there and whup your ass for that,” the older man replied, but without real heat.

They walked side by side in silence for a few paces, and then Gloria turned to look the boy in the face. 

“I don't want to hear that you're smoking too much of what you're selling down there,” she said. “Your brain’s not done cooking yet.” 

His face took on a mulish expression. “Oh, so it's ‘do as I say, not as I do’ again, huh. Just like every other grownup in this fucking town. Dunno why I thought you might be different.” 

“Duke Crocker,” she said sternly, “I am not trying to be goddamn Nancy Reagan, here. But my brain’s pretty settled at this point--yours is not. And it's a good brain, you know. I can quote science at you for quite awhile, if you want a break from your fishing buddies.”

“Think I’ll pass, Dr. V,” he replied, a little softer now. 

“Well, keep it in mind,” she said, and he nodded. He turned toward her again, eyes now slightly downcast and said, “You don't have to worry that I’ll say anything to, to Ben or anybody,” he blurted. 

She patted his shoulder. “Wasn't worried about that, kiddo.” He shuffled his work boots in the dirt.

“And don't let Buster Simmons get to you. He's all talk, no fight. Was that way when we were in school together, still is.” 

“Kinda figured that,” he said. “Well, I guess I'll see you around, Dr. V.” 

“Looks looks like we're doing business together, so you probably will.” 

He nodded and strolled back toward the pier. She watched his back for a long time, thinking. 

She remembered a day years ago when she'd been stuck subbing an emergency room shift and two little boys had come in by themselves, one leaning on the other and bleeding from an injury he couldn't feel. She remembered the scabby-kneed little boy who'd dogged Lucy Ripley's steps like a scrawny shadow. She and Betsy McShaw, whose younger son Bill was in her Ben’s class, had exchanged worried glances over that boy as he grew older and skinnier. She remembered how Betsy’s CPS report had done precisely squat in the face of a still-pretty mother who could put on a convincing act in Family Court. She thought about the half-fascinated, half-horrified reports she’d heard from Ben about Duke’s entrepreneurial activities under the bleachers at football games. No, anything that could entangle this kid in the system wasn't the answer.

She smoked some of the weed she'd bought later that evening, sitting at the end of the dock behind her house and watching the ever-changing play of light on water. It soothed her, kept the nightmares away better than anything else she'd tried. But she didn't entirely forget her more serious thoughts. 

She went back to the docks before she really wanted more weed, made a token purchase, then pulled out a foil-wrapped pan. “Please help me get this out of my house. When my husband is on a casserole-making kick he has no concept of what three people can reasonably eat.” 

“What about your pan, Dr.V?”

“Call me Gloria, kid, and don't worry about the pan--I’ll get it next time.”


End file.
